1928年出生于美国弗吉尼亚州的约翰·纳什极具数学天赋。他19岁时成为普林斯顿大学数学系研究生，22岁获数学博士学位。当时他的两篇论文，“讨价还价问题”(The Bargaining Problems)和“非合作博奕”(Non-Cooperative Games)，向传统的博奕论提出了挑战，开辟了经济学研究的新领域。1957年，纳什在麻省理工学院教书时与艾里西亚结婚。正当纳什事业步入辉煌之时，却不幸得了严重的妄想型精神分裂症。艾里西亚虽然于1963年与他离婚，但一直悉心照顾他的生活。母校普林斯顿大学也允许他回来工作。纳什最终以过人的勇气和毅力走出了困境。1994年12月，纳什被授予诺贝尔经济学奖。

　　2001年，纳什的传奇人生被著名导演朗·霍华德搬上了银幕。2002年3月，该片获第74届奥斯卡最佳影片、最佳导演、最佳改编剧本以及最佳女配角四项大奖。纳什与艾里西亚也出席了当晚的颁奖仪式。

　　Princeton<注1>,1947. John Nash is a talented graduate student at the Department of Mathematics. However, he does not like classes because he thinks they dull the mind and kill one’s creativeness. He is often engrossed in his own peculiar study of numbers in the daily life to find out the law guiding them. His ambition is to be the next Morse or Einstein<注2>.

　　Towards the end of his study in Princeton, John’s professor has a talk with him blaming him for his delaying the research paper while other students have all done their bit and some even have published their research results. The professor also shows Nash how all other staff pay their respect to one of the professors who has made a great achievement in the field by presenting him their pens one by one, a unique Princeton tradition.

　　After a period of hard work, John Nash finally presents his research solution to his professor who is surprised by the creative ideas in the paper and says that John can get any placement in the university. John chooses to do research at MIT’s<注3> Wheeler’s Lab attached to the Pentagon<注4> and recommends two of his friends to work with him. Now that he becomes a professor of MIT, he has to teach classes though he considers it a waste of both his and the students?time. In the classroom, he is upset by the noise from the repairing workers outside. A beautiful girl called Alicia in the class helps him solve the problem by persuading the workers to work in other places for 45 minutes. John is drawn to the girl by her wit and beauty.

　　Later, a mysterious William Patcher from the Defense Department meets with John and talks him into working secretly for the department because of his natural code breaking ability and lack of connection with other people. One day, Alicia comes to John’s office to present her perfect solution to John’s assignment for the class and invites him to the governor’s dinner. John is so attracted to her that they spend a romantic evening sharing their views on the universe and stars. John continues working for William. When he drops his findings in a sealed envelope to the letter box of the Defense Department at night, he sees suspicious figures in the darkness, which upsets him. One day, he is pondering on some problem under a tree on the campus when a little girl appears from nowhere and asks him strange questions. Lifting his head, John sees Charles, who is now working at Harvard, and is here with his niece to see him. John tells Charles that he’s in love with a beautiful girl and asks for his advice on whether to marry her or not. Charles is happy for John and supports his marrying Alicia. However, when John and Alicia are getting into their car for honeymoon, he finds that William is secretly watching him from a car.

　　As time goes by, John begins to be upset whenever there’s a strange sound or a person around. He even forbids Alicia to turn on the light at night. One day, William comes to see him at his office. When John begs him to let him go, William tells John that he cannot quit because the Russians are informed of the fact that John has been working for the Defense Department.

　　Time has come for John to deliver his lecture at Harvard Mathematicians Conference. Charles and his little niece are also there to meet him. When it is John’s turn to read his paper, he again spots suspicious figures at the four corners of the conference hall. Panic grips him, and he tries to escape from the side door, but eventually is captured by these people headed by Dr. Rosen whom John thinks are Russian spies. John struggles very hard to break away, but is injected with some medicine and loses consciousness. When he wakes up, John finds himself confined to<注5> the chair of a ward in a psychiatric hospital<注6> supervised by Dr. Rosen. Alicia is told that John Nash has been suffering from paranoia and hallucination<注7>. William, Charles and his niece were all John’s creation in his mind and his so-called Pentagon work as government spy was also pure imagination.

　　In order to cure his schizophrenia<注8>, John has to receive electric shock<注9> treatment five times a week for ten weeks. Though recovered from hallucination, John becomes retarded and has to rely on medicine for a“normal”life. John wants to go on doing his research, but the medication prevents him from concentrating on the problem he attempts to solve. What is worse, he cannot respond to Alicia’s sexual need. So he tries to skip the daily pills Alicia gives him and hides them in a drawer. Soon, John is able to concentrate on his research. However, his hallucination about William and Charles has also returned to his mind from time to time.

　　One day, Alicia asks John to take their baby son for a bath while she goes to collect the dried clothes outside their house. By accident, Alicia gets into the little cabin near their house and is stunned to see the clipped data all over the wall. She knows that John now is back to his schizophrenia, which means that he might be dangerous to the people around him. Alicia dashes into the bathroom and there the baby is left alone in the tub and the running water is on the verge of drowning him. It turns out that John, in his imagination, was told by Charles that he would take care of the baby. Alicia immediately picks up the phone for Dr. Rosen, but is hit by John who is being torn between the imagined William and Charles and the real world Alicia. Alicia rushes out of the house in an attempt to drive to the psychiatric hospital but is stopped by John who tells her that he knows that those figures are imagined because the little girl never grows up for those years.

　　At the hospital, Dr. Rosen suggests that John receive medication again but is turned down firmly by John who insists that he could work out a pattern between the real and imagined worlds just like solving a math problem. He persuades Alicia to leave him alone since he’s dangerous now. After some hesitation, Alicia decides to stay and help John. John goes to his old classmate Martin asking for a favor to allow him to stay in Princeton doing his research in the library. His request is honored, but still he has to struggle with his delusions<注10> where he quarrels and argues with William, Charles and his little niece, which often makes a scene<注11> on the campus. In order not to embarrass Martin and Alicia, John is determined not to talk to these imagined figures any more though it takes great pain to do so.

　　Many years has passed before Martin tells John a good news that he is permitted to teach students at Princeton beginning from the spring of 1979. Besides teaching, John keeps his quest for<注12> the law of numbers and has solved more problems. By this time, John Nash has been widely recognized for his early contribution to the theory of equilibrium in the 1950s. In October 1994, John is informed that he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize. He is led into a lounge and each and every of the staff presents their pens to him to show their respect. Delusions still torture him, but he has been accustomed to these imagined figures and chooses to ignore them.

　　December 1994, Nobel Prize Ceremony, Stockholm, Sweden<注13>. John Nash is awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. In his emotional speech, he tells the audience that he has been pursuing the logic and reason behind the numbers and that he has found all his reasons and logics in fact are the result of love from Alicia and friends.

　　Nash’s theories have influenced global trade negotiations, national labor relations, and even breakthroughs in evolutionary biology<注14>. John and Alicia Nash live in Princeton, New Jersey. John keeps regular office hours in the Mathematics Department. He still walks to campus every day. -

　　A Professor Emphasizes the Importance of Mathematics

　　“Mathematicians won the war. Mathematicians broke the Japanese’s codes, and built the A-bomb1. Mathematicians... like you. The stated goals of the Soviets is the global communism in medicine or economics, in technology or space. Battle lines are being drawn. To triumph, we need results. Publishable, applicable results. Now who among you would be the next Morse...the next Einstein? Who among you would be the vanguard2 of democracy, freedom, and discovery? Today we bequeath3 the America’s future into your able hands. Welcome to Princeton, Gentlemen.”John Addresses the Audience at the Nobel Prize Ceremony 1994

　　“We always believed in numbers. Equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a life time of such pursuit, I ask,‘what truly is logic? Who decides its reason?’My quest has taken me through physical, metaphysical4, the delusional...and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life. It’s only a mysterious quest of love that any logical reasons can be found. (Looking at Alicia in the audience.) I’m only here because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.”(Applause) -

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